Taught by Erin Mae Lewis, for Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer Players

Video 1

In this series, Erin teaches us how to find and build all types of chords - some you may never have heard of before. She covers major chords and minor, diminished chords and augmented, 7th chords and more.

With this video, she begins with a full G major chord. This chord will serve as "home base" when building the following G chords.

A suspended chord (sus chord) is a musical chord in which the (major or minor) third is omitted, replaced usually with either the fourth or second tone of the scale, although the fourth is far more common.

A diminished chord is a chord consisting of two minor thirds above the root. For example, when built on G, a diminished chord will have a G, a B♭ and a D♭. It resembles a minor chord with a lowered (flattened) fifth.

An augmented chord is a chord consisting of two major thirds, formed by starting with the major chord and raising the 5th tone 1/2 step. When built on G, an augmented chord will have a G, a B, and a D# (raised, sharpened fifth).

After explained how to create the G augmented chord, Erin strums each of the chords demonstrated in the prior videos.

In the reverse, extended slant shape, the root tone is played on the bass string. Erin shows us the reverse slant shape for a D chord, and this will serve as "home base" for building other D chords in this series.

A seventh chord is a chord consisting of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th tones of the scale, plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. Similarly, the sixth chord has the addition of the 6th tone of the scale added above the 1st, 3rd, and 5th tones of the scale.

If you feel the D chord above were difficult to reach, you can reverse the root tone to the melody string instead of the bass string. In this video, Erin demonstrates each of the chords in this second option.